Magic 301: Curses and Bloodlines
I had the chance to talk to another makout (priest, non-Asogwe line) online, a little while back. He’s practicing out of Haiti, as a part of his family’s commitment to the spirits. He was addressing the attitude that many Americans have about what races are allowed to be involved with vodou and told a story. A French woman was bought to his societe in (I think) Port au Prince by a friend. During the ceremony, Papa Guede possessed the woman—who had no idea this was possible and no previous association with Guede—and told a story.
One of her ancestors had been a slave owner in Haiti who, seeing the writing on the wall just prior to the revolution, got his family out of Haiti. He had been kind to his slaves, what Papa Guede described as a “good man.” As a result, Papa Guede attached himself to the family line, presumably to repay the favor. The French woman he possessed ended up a mambo in Port au Prince, and has her own societe. The houngan makout telling the story did not give the name.
I tell this story for several reasons: first, the lwa remember. They remember how their children are treated, and they remember good actions as well as bad actions.
Second, it is possible to have a variety of family lineages and end up in vodou. On occasion, slave owners and their lineages end up here. People are drawn to vodou from any damn where the lwa need them to be, and our prejudices on that topic do not matter. This was the houngan’s point. No matter what it might look like, the lwa are perfectly capable of pulling people from even the groups which may have oppressed their children, in order to serve the divine.
To be clear, serving the divine and the lwa is a privilege.
Third, it is a reminder that heritage does interact with the present. I have mentioned that I have no intention of leaving a legacy the way people typically mean it, but I do have an inheritance from my biological family. It is not a happy one. Learning about it horrified me, as a teenager. As I have done healing and elevation work, I have learned more horrifying things about that inheritance.
A curse can be a tool, if you have the free will necessary to use it instead of being used by it.
One of the gifts vodou gives us is the knowledge that whatever has been woven into our bloodline or experience, it can be healed. It can be resolved. Even when it is negative enough to be a curse, vodou offers the explicit tools necessary to start resolving the consequences of whatever actions caused a curse to follow a bloodline.
All actions have consequences, but nothing, no matter how painful or horrifying, lasts forever.
